Polycles (155 BC)

Polycles was an ancient Greek sculptor who flourished about the 156th Olympiad (155 BC) and was mentioned in Pliny's Natural History.[1] In Pliny's list, the name of this Polycles is followed by Athenaeus, either to be taken as the name of another sculptor or as Polycles's birthplace. A Juno by him stood in the Portico of Octavia at Rome.[2] The sculpture principally associated with this sculptor is a Hermaphroditus, of which there are no clues in Pliny as to whether it was standing or reclining, but which the surviving Roman copies are taken to be replicas of Polycles' bronze original. The Borghese Hermaphroditus is said to be one of these copies.[citation needed]

1.
Natural History (Pliny)
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The Natural History is an early encyclopedia in Latin by Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and naval commander who died in 79 AD. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the works subject area is thus not limited to what is today understood by natural history, Pliny himself defines his scope as the natural world, or life. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into ten volumes, the Natural History became a model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index. The work is dedicated to the emperor Titus, son of Plinys close friend and it is the only work by Pliny to have survived and the last that he published. He began it in 77, and had not made a revision at the time of his death during the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius. Plinys Natural History was written alongside other substantial works, Pliny combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother, Hail to thee, Nature. And do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, the Natural History is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia. However, it does have structure, Pliny uses Aristotles division of nature to recreate the world in literary form. The work is unified but varied, My subject is the world of nature, or in other words, life, he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy which underlies much of his thought. But the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race, nature, that is life is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography, Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race and this teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History. The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value, the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture, sculpture, painting and jewellery. Plinys premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the sentiment of his time. Pliny repeated Aristotles maxim that Africa was always producing something new, natures variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite, When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible. This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on the edges of the world and these monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae, whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi, who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – shaped like an umbrella pine, according to his nephew – rising from the mountain

2.
Hermaphroditus
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In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus or Hermaphroditos /hərˌmæf. rəˈdaɪ. təs/ was the son of Aphrodite and Hermes. According to Ovid, he was born a remarkably handsome boy with whom the water nymph Salmacis fell in love, a god, in answer to her prayer, merged their two forms into one and transformed them into an androgynous form. His name is compounded of his parents names, Hermes and Aphrodite and he was one of the Erotes. Because he was a son of Hermes, and consequently a great-grandson of Atlas, Hermaphroditus father, Hermes, was also called Atlantiades because his mother, Maia was the daughter of Atlas. His name is the basis for the word hermaphrodite, Hermaphroditus, the two-sexed child of Aphrodite and Hermes had long been a symbol of androgyny or effeminacy, and was portrayed in Greco-Roman art as a female figure with male genitals. Theophrastuss account also suggests a link between Hermaphroditus and the institution of marriage, the reference to the fourth day of the month is telling, this is the luckiest day to have a wedding. Hermaphrodituss association with marriage seems to have been that, by embodying both masculine and feminine qualities, he symbolized the coming together of men and women in sacred union, another factor linking Hermaphroditus to weddings was his parents role in protecting and blessing brides. Hermaphrodituss name is derived from those of his parents Hermes and Aphrodite, all three of these gods figure largely among erotic and fertility figures, and all possess distinctly sexual overtones. Sometimes, Hermaphroditus is referred to as Aphroditus, the phallic god Priapus was the son of Hermes in some accounts, and the youthful god of desire Eros of Hermes and Aphrodite. Ovids account relates that Hermaphroditus was nursed by naiads in the caves of Mount Ida, at the age of fifteen, he grew bored with his surroundings and traveled to the cities of Lycia and Caria. It was in the woods of Caria, near Halicarnassus that he encountered the nymph, Salmacis and she was overcome by lust for the boy, who was very handsome but still young, and tried to seduce him, but was rejected. When he thought her to be gone, Hermaphroditus undressed and entered the waters of the empty pool, Salmacis sprang out from behind a tree and jumped into the pool. She wrapped herself around the boy, forcibly kissing him and touching his breast, while he struggled, she called out to the gods that they should never part. Her wish was granted, and their bodies blended into one form, Hermaphroditus prayed to Hermes and Aphrodite that anyone else who bathed in the pool would be similarly transformed, and his wish was granted. In this form the story was not ancient, Karl Kerenyi noted. He compared the myth of the beautiful ephebe with Narcissus and Hyacinthus, who had an archaic hero-cult, the oldest traces of the cult in Greek countries are found in Cyprus. Here, according to Macrobius, there was a statue of a male Aphrodite. Philochorus in his Atthis further identified this divinity, at whose sacrifices men and women exchanged garments, a terracotta plaque from the 7th century BC depicting Aphroditos was found in Perachora, which suggests it was an archaic cult

3.
Sleeping Hermaphroditus
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The Sleeping Hermaphroditus is an ancient marble sculpture depicting Hermaphroditus life size. In 1620, Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted the mattress upon which the statue now lies, the form is partly derived from ancient portrayals of Venus and other female nudes, and partly from contemporaneous feminised Hellenistic portrayals of Dionysus/Bacchus. It represents a subject that was repeated in Hellenistic times and in ancient Rome. Discovered at Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, the Sleeping Hermaphroditus was immediately claimed by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the Borghese Hermaphroditus was later sold to the occupying French and was moved to The Louvre, where it is on display today. The discovery was made either when the foundations were being dug or when espaliers were being planted. In his new Villa Borghese, a called the Room of the Hermaphrodite was devoted to it. A second-century copy of the Sleeping Hermaphroditus was found in 1781, a third Roman marble variant was discovered in 1880, during building works to make Rome the capital of a newly united Italy. It is now on display at the Museo Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme, additional ancient copies can be found at the Uffizi in Florence, Vatican Museums in Vatican City, and the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Many copies have been produced since the Renaissance, in a variety of media, full size copies were produced for Philip IV of Spain in bronze, ordered by Velázquez and now in the Prado Museum, and for Versailles. The composition has clearly influenced Velázquezs painting of the Rokeby Venus, a reduced-scale bronze copy, made and signed by Giovanni Francesco Susini, is now at the Metropolitan Museum. Another reduced-scale copy, this produced in ivory by François Duquesnoy, was purchased in Rome by John Evelyn in the 1640s. American artist Barry X Ball produced a copy after the Louvres version, made from Belgian black marble on a Carrara marble base. This sculpture is offered at Christies NY for sale,10 May 2016, Sleeping Hermaphroditos | Louvre Museum - Statue information The first copy, Louvre catalogue page Hermaphrodites at the Villa Borghese

4.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek

5.
Porticus Octaviae
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The Porticus Octaviae is an ancient structure in Rome. The structure was built by Augustus in the name of his sister, Octavia Minor, sometime after 27 BC, the colonnaded walks of the portico enclosed the temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno Regina, next to the Theater of Marcellus. It burned in 80 AD and was restored, probably by Domitian and it was adorned with foreign marble and contained many famous works of art, enumerated in Plinys Natural History. The structure was damaged by an earthquake in 442 AD, when two of the columns were replaced with an archway which still stands. The church of SantAngelo in Pescheria was built in the ruins circa 770 AD, besides the pre-existing temples, the enclosure included a library erected by Octavia in memory of her son Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the curia Octaviae, and a schola. Whether these were different parts of one building, or entirely different structures, is uncertain and it was probably in the curia that the senate is recorded as meeting. The whole is referred to by Pliny the Elder as Octaviae opera, the portico was used as a fish market from the medieval period, and up to the end of 19th century. This role is remembered in the name of the church of SantAngelo in Pescheria. The building, which lies in rione SantAngelo, represents the center of the Roman Ghetto, lacusCurtius. com, Samuel Ball Platner, revised by Thomas Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, Porticus Octaviae The Portico of Octavia at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

6.
Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records